California 2010 - BEST VACATION EVER!!!

I'm proud (and sad) to say that the Pew's have officially taken their first REAL vacation! All of our vacations so far have been weekend trips (3-4 days MAX) with family and just hanging out. Not to say that is a bad thing because we love spending time with family at their houses and just relaxing. But this year we had something bigger in mind. When my sister's and I took our beach trip in 2009, we decided then and there that our family needed an annual vacation together. So we started planning out a beach house trip from then on. It finally happened and it was AWESOME!

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With David's schedule, he only had to request 4 days off of work and ended up having 10 days off in total. So we took full advantage of those 10 days and headed to California. We stayed with his parents in El Centro for the first 3 days. No El Centro trip is complete without playing hours and hours of card games until our fingers bleed. We LOVE it!

David and I took in a movie and saw "Knight and Day" while we were there. Cute movie!

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Then we were off to Newport Beach for 7 days in a beach house right off the sand! It was awesome! Right across from our house on the bay side was a few rides. Here is Kylee, David and Kyrstin riding the ferris wheel.

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BEACH TIME! Yes everyone......this is my lovely husband for all time and eternity. Aren't I lucky?!!!!

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My little beach babe!


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Dylan, Kyrstin and Kylee catching sand crabs...

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The first day we were there, Kylee got demolished by a huge wave! Needless to say, our little fragile princess refused to go back in. But David tried and tried to pep talk her into going back in........as you can see in this picture below. It didn't work though! She refused to step foot in the water for the rest of the week!

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My beach babes!

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Beautiful Princess Tiana dresses that Kylee and Kyrstin got at Disneyland. They never took these dresses off!

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Waiting outside the Crab Cooker. Natalie and me!

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All the girls waiting outside the Crab Cooker. Most of our other family members had left by this time.

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The WHOLE MONTEZ GANG hanging out at the beach house. We are a crazy bunch! Love them all!!!

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The Montez and Pew family taking a bike ride. Fun times!

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Olivia and I before a refreshing and AMAZING run on the beach. I lived for that each morning I was there. So awesome!!!

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Kylee and her cousins Libby and Maddie. They live in Newport Beach. Lucky girls!

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Tera and me getting tan! I love my sisters!

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DISNEYLAND!!!!!!!!

This was the first time Kylee had been to Disneyland. We were so excited to take her and to see her reactions to everything there for the first time. Here is Kylee and Kyrstin eating a churro! Can't go to Disneyland and not eat one of these! Mmmm!

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Splash Mountain! Kylee was a trooper and rode all the rides!

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Kyrstin and Kylee on the merry-g0-round!

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She missed out on the Matterhorn because this is what happened as we were waiting in line!

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Our "navigating" boys! Yes....we needed a map! Haha!

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The PRINCESSES!!!!! Not gonna lie.....Kylee was terrified of all the characters walking around the park, including the princesses! I thought she'd LOVE them and want to stare at them and talk to them all day long. But she was terrified! This picture took some convincing!

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Kyrstin and Kylee on "It's a Small World After All". This was the first ride of the day!

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Taking a rest on Daddy's head! Sweet girl!

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Typical Disneyland family picture at the front of the park. I think David is a LITTLE excited to be there! Hahaha!

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After the first picture with Princess Tiana, the only way Kylee would take pictures with the rest of the princesses is if I went with her. But I'm glad she made me because I got to take a picture with my favorite Disney Princess (Jasmine)!

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One happy family at Disneyland!

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I'm so glad we had the opportunity to go on this vacation. It was amazing and just what our little family needed! We will hopefully be doing this every summer now with my family. Next year will be Sea World! We can't wait! Gotta start saving now! :)

Summer stuff

W-O-W!!!! Summer is here and my June was already JAM PACKED, and my July is looking about the same so far. Where oh where do I start? I just have to start out by saying that I have been amazingly blessed when it comes to volleyball. I've had some of the BEST coaches, I had the once in a life-time opportunity to win a state title as a player and as a coach, I had an undefeated season as a Sophmore on my JV High School team, my team won the 16's division in club, and the list goes on and on. But I never thought I'd be loving and blesssed on the flip side of volleyball........OFFICIATING! I have been officiating off and on over the past 5 years but this past year I took the year off of coaching and dedicated my time to officiating. And I'm LOVING it! I'm getting more opportunities in my first REAL year of officiating than most officials get in their lifetime. I ranked up this year from a level 1 official to a level 2. I was then asked to line judge the open adult nationals in Phoenix. That was HUGE! I worked matches with TEAM USA! The speed and tempo of those matches were unreal! Here is a picture of me working one of the matches. This was actually the final championship match. This picture was taken by a professional and it was on the USAV website for all to see. I'm famous! Hahaha!

Look at me getting "low" to see every angle of the play! Oh yeah baby!!!!

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The next week was Girl's Camp at Camp LoMia. I love going to Camp LoMia! I secretly wish to have a cabin there one day just because being there makes me so happy. I went up on a stake level this year and it was an amazing experience! I met so many amazing women and had a blast staying up late and talking and laughing until I cried my eyes out. I went up with the Junior Staffers. My girls were amazing! I always have the best experiences up at camp and I'm so thankful that I get the opportunity to go every year somehow!

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While at Girl's Camp, I had to leave to drive back for my 10 year High School reunion. YES PEOPLE......I'm THAT old! Awwwww! I left for the night and went back to camp the next day. The turn out at the reunion was very poor but I still got to see some great friends of mine that I hadn't seen in a long time. Case in point below......HALEY STEWART!!! Love that girl! Hadn't seen her since High School. Tausha and Jodi I see all the time, but it was still fun to hang out with them there!

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Between my crazy schedule last month, I decided it was time to super clean and gut out our computer room closet! That thing is a DISASTER! As I was cleaning, I came across an old shoe box full of pictures from my childhood. It was awesome to see these pictures! Here are a few of them I found and can't help but post them...
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This one isn't from my childhood but it is our engagement picture. I can't believe how dark David's hair is! NO GRAYS! YAY!!!!! Hahahaha!

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And below is a LOVELY picture of me in one of my many many dance costumes. My Mom had all of us girls in dance for years! This was my "famous" Baby Face dance that my sisters used to tease me about. Gotta love that costume though!

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Here is an AWESOME picture of the Montez crew! We are dang good lookin!

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I had my first garage sale a couple weeks ago! It was interesting but a success! We didn't have that much to sell, but with what we had we ended up making $160!!! Vacation money baby! Woo hoo!

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Also between all the business of this past month, Kylee was able to have friends over and play play play! Here is a state-of-the-art fort made by Cole and herself. They did this all by themselves too! They are GENIOUSES! Hahaah!

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I was having blackberry issues so we took a family trip to T-Mobile a couple weeks ago. This was just a cute picture that I took of Kylee and decided it was "post-worthy"!

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Let's see......moving on.....2 weeks ago I helped run the Queen Creek Bulldog volleyball camp. I had 20 kids on my court from age 10 up to 14. They were cute as usual and they improved so much! So proud of them! They worked hard! I'm getting more and more excited to coach again after taking a year off.

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This past week (just ended yesterday) I was in Phoenix every day.....5 days in a row....for the Festival volleyball tournament. It's a huge tournament held at the end of the club season. I had a couple teams from my club enter and it was great to see them there, but I was there for officiating purposes. I worked 31 matches in all! My legs felt like they were going to fall off. I was gone from 6am until 9pm everyday. I now know what it feels like to be a working Mom and I am so thankful to have a hard-working husband who sacrifices so much so that I can stay at home with Kylee and our future children. I'm also so thankful to have a part-time job where I can help bring in some money!

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Here is a shot of the main playing area at the Pheonix Convention Center. There were over 65 courts in all with over 1,000 teams! It was crazy insane and such a cool experience!

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I got to work the 17's final at the US Airways Center. That was such an amazing experience. Out of the 200+ officials that were there this week, I got chosen to work one of the finals! That's huge and one of the many amazing opportunities that I was talking about that I'm getting. Coaching is my passion, but I just happen to be good at officiating (and the money is great) so I will keep on going with it! Anything that keeps me involved with the game makes me happy!

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So that was my June! CRAZY RIGHT?! My July is busy but it's all about the fun and not so much about the work work work. In two weeks we leave for our long-awaited beach house (10 day) vacation in New Port with my family. I can't wait!!! We are taking Kylee to Disneyland for an early birthday present! So excited for that! The last week of July, school starts and therefore so does volleyball! I'm coaching at Queen Creek and I am getting more and more excited for the girls! I have some great ones coming up and some fun ones returning. It should be a great season!

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And the BEST news of all...........WE ARE OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED TO BE ADOPTIVE PARENTS! Woo hoo! We just got our certificate today in the mail. We are so excited. I've been busy all day posting our information on a couple different websites. Please remember to keep us in mind if you hear of anyone that is looking to place or is considering adoption. We are praying that this process won't take as long as our infertility struggle. We are SO ready to have a sweet precious baby join our family at last. Keep us in your prayers please!

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LIFE IS GOOD......and busy!

Swim lessons

Kylee just finished her 3rd year of swim lessons. She has become quite the little swimmer! She can now swim forever and knows exactly what to do and she knows how to do 3 different kinds of strokes. I'm so proud of her and thankful she knows how to swim so that I don't have to be so nervous around a pool! She made some new friends in her class. Here she is with her class...

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It's tradition that they all get to go down the slide on the last day. They were so excited!

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They were all a little hesitant but ended up jumping off the waterfall too. Kylee was the first one to try it but ended up doing a belly flop!!! Needless to say, she did NOT want to do that again!

Perfect form for a FLOP!

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These pictures below were worth posting for sure! Kylee was cleaning her toy room yesterday and ended up running out of gas half way through it. It got quiet so we went to check on her, and this is what we found!!!

She sleeps just like her Daddy! Haha!

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We are loving summer! Maybe one of these years we'll move to a house with a pool! Don't you think that having a pool should come STANDARD on ALL houses in Arizona? It's suicide to NOT have one in the summer when you live here!!! We are thankful to have friends and family close by that don't mind us using their pool all the time. We love the water! Can't wait for the beach next month! Woo hoo!

Catching up...

Between Facebook and my blog, I can't remember what I've posted on what. As I went back and looked through my recent blog posts, I realized that I have missed some important events! So I have some catching up to do...
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In May, Kylee graduated from preschool! She did really well these past two years in her class. Her teacher is GREAT and Kylee absolutely loved her. Kylee knows how to spell and write out her entire name (Kylee Alexa Pew), she can write her entire alphabet in upper and lower case letters, she knows and can recite the pledge of allegiance, she knows many riddles and songs and all of her colors and shapes, and there are many other things she has learned over the past two years in preschool.

Here she is with her class...

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Proud Momma!!!

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Kylee with her teacher "Miss Jill"

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Last month, on May 17th, David and I celebrated our 8th anniversary. I can't believe we are coming up on our 10 year in 2 years. Time flies by! Words can't express just how much I love this man. I'm the luckiest woman in the world! And I mean that! He makes me laugh everyday, he hugs and kisses me everyday, he is my little cuddle bear, he never hesitates to give me back tickles when I ask for them (my favorite thing EVER), he is such an amazing provider for our family, he is the world's GREATEST Daddy, and the list goes on and on. We also got a scanner from my sister so it's been fun to post old pictures on here. This was our wedding announcement picture. Young pups in googoo gaga love! Haha!

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SUMMER is here!!! This is our favorite time of year. Kylee got a new swimsuit and is ready to swim everyday! She is in swim lessons for the 3rd straight year in a row. She is the best swimmer in her little class right now. She is doing her strokes so well and is finally mastering how to come up and take breaths. She can now swim across the entire pool! She's a little fishy!

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One thing that we have never taken as a family is a TRUE vacation! Our "vacations" consist of spending a weekend with a family member or just staying over night in a hotel somewhere. Well, this year we are actually taking a real vacation and it's going to last 10 whole days! I can't believe it! With David's schedule now, we are able to take more time away for a vacation. We are going to a beach house with my entire family in July for a week. During that week, we will be attending a family reunion from my Mom's side, going to Disneyland for Kylee's 5th birthday, celebrating David's 31st birthday on the beach, having endless fun on the beach, and hopefully spending 3 extra days with David's family in El Centro. We are so excited!!!

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After our vacation and summer nears to an end, we get to have one more BIG celebration. On August 9th, my baby girl turns 5 and starts Kindergarten on the same day! How lucky is she! She gets a birthday party in her classroom on her first day of school!! The Saturday before the "big day", we are going to party it up in celebration of Kylee girl turning 5. I can't believe how fast these 5 years have flown by. Words can't express just how much this angel means to me. She is beyond beautiful on the outside, and even more beautiful on the inside. She has the most tender heart and is such a willing helper. She's smart, funny, silly, a good dancer, an even better singer, and the best cook and cleaner I know! She is everything and more that I ever could've hoped for in a daughter.

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We are still in the steps and process of getting certified to adopt. We should hopefully be certified by the middle to end of this month (June). We can't wait to finally be certified so we can post our profiles all over the internet. We are so excited still to be on this journey and know the Lord is guiding us through every step. We feel his love and presence constantly throughout this process.

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We had family pictures taken in April and most of them are posted on our adoption blog, but this one below pretty much sums up our family. David is always making the jokes, I'm always laughing at him, and Kylee is off in her own little "la-la" land dancing and singing like a princess.

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We love life, we are extremely happy, we get stronger through the struggles, we have so much fun during the smooth times, and we never stop laughing. Life is good! Life is PEWfect!

New Family Pictures

I don't know if anyone still looks at my blog, but for those of you who still do, I posted new family pictures on our adoption blog. If you don't have that blog address, you can just click to the right on our link.

Kylee's First Dance Recital

Ever since January, Kylee has been taking dance lessons from a lady who teaches them out of her home. It was a perfect little starter dance class and I think I will put her in a few more of her classes. Kylee loved it and she was so cute and GREAT at her dance recital last night. Here are a few pictures from it....

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Good Ship Lolli Pop tap dance...

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When You Wish Upon A Star ballerina dance...

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My favorite dance was the Good Ship Lolli Pop, but my favorite outfit was the ballerina tu tu. She looked so cute! She did so good and remembered almost all of the dances! THE VIDEOS OF BOTH HER DANCES ARE POSTED AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF MY BLOG (this is for the Grandma's mainly)

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PS - Thanks to Jaime for taking these amazing pictures!!!!!

Annual Mother's Day Lunch

Every Friday before Mother's Day, all of us girls get together for lunch at Olive Garden. It's quickly becoming one of my most favorite traditions. I love any excuse to get together with my "girls"! We are missing Olivia because she was sick, but here is the rest of us after stuffing our faces full of yummy delicious food...

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Sisters!!!!!

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Sisters.........My Aunt Penny and Momma!

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Me and my baby! Hopefully she'll have sisters one day too!

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After lunch we decided to go visit our other "Mom" and life long friend. We love our Debbie!

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It was a wonderful day........Lunch with my girls, a visit to Deb, shopping with Tera and Mom, a baptism for 5 amazing little girls, and then watching the Suns DESTROY the Spurs and take a 3-0 lead in the series! LIFE IS GOOD!!!!! :)